Sunday in Cali

We met up with some great friends in Irvine.  Micah and Xinru, and Todd and Gina from Vermont.  We love their families.  Xinru was so amazing while we were there.  Hopefully someday we can repay the hospitality.  Xinru and Micah attend a Chinese branch in Irvine, so we tagged along.  Half the talks were in Chinese, while someone sat up translating.  We wore headsets and were able to hear the translation.  It was pretty neat to catch the essence of people's testimonies.  It was also neat to sing with a congregation where half of the people sang in Chinese and half in English.  I really enjoyed going.  My kids were scared to go to Chinese Primary: what if they asked them to pray, what would happen when they sang and they didn't know the songs in Chinese.....Our formal sabbath worship ended after Sacrament Meeting :)

Love Kate's cheesy face

We headed out to see the San Diego Temple.  The grounds were beautiful and all my girls thought it looked just like a castle.

 From there, we headed to the Mormon Battalion Visitor's Center.  If you are in California on a Sunday, this is a great place to go.  They have an interactive video presentation that explains what the Mormon Battalion was, and then they have a bunch of children's hands on activities.  It was fun for the kids.  But it was a little weird when the sister missionaries recognized John from his Kid History videos and wanted a picture :)

Avery was lucky enough to be a volunteer